Rules : Wards versus a successfully warded creature.
Resolved This matter has been resolved by the following: ---- Subject Focus: Assuming that a ward successfully wards off a creature, what can it do to that which is warded, and the ward itself - in the case that it has a target of circle or boundary. Assumptions: * The creature's might is insufficient to penetrate the ward. * The ward can either be realm or form specific. Berklist Archive Material ---- ARS Wards David Woods Fri Mar 17 23:10:16 UTC 2000 Hi. I've musing about wards and trying to get a consistant framework together. Here's what I've come up with so far. Comments welcome. Wards Wards exclude things from entering or harming the warded target. Commonly wards protect against spells or supernatural creatures, but mundane objects and creatures can also be warded against. Wards only prevent the warded creature or object from harming or entering the target area. A magus with a personal ward against mundane people couldn’t be harmed by being punched or bitten, but could still be wrestled and pinned. A ward against people offers no protection against swords, daggers or staffs that people might use to hit the magus with. Spells, beings and objects within the warded area when the spell is cast, are immune from the affect of the spell for the duration. Therefore, casting a ward against magical beasts while a dragon is eating you would be ineffective. Standard wards have a base range of Personal, duration of Sun and a target of Individual. This is constant across all forms, irrespective of the normal range, duration and target for the particular form. Wards Against Magic Wards against magic using the Vim form, pit the level of the ward against the penetration of the effect. Wards like this are realm specific. Wards verses magical, faerie and infernal powers can all be generated by Hermetic magic, but they provide no protection against effects from other realms. This highlights the utility of Parma Magica as it is effective against all realms (bar divine). However, it is possible to ward against specific magical forms. Such wards use the magical form they protect against. The advantage of form specific magical protection is that it is not realm specific. The Storyguide determines what magical form (and requisites) Hermetic magic would regard any particular Power to be. If the effect involves the warded form (even as a requisite), the ward will act against it. By warding against a form and not the magic itself, the spell does not need to be tailored for a particular realm. This sort of protection is often used in fast-cast spells. Wards Against Mundane Creatures, People and Objects Wards against mundane objects are effective up to a particular size, dependent on level. Such wards use Animál, Aquam, Auram, Corpus, Herbam, Ignem or Terram. Wards Against Supernatural Creatures and People Wards against supernatural beings using the Vim form are realm specific. Supernatural beings pit their Might against the level of the ward. If the ward is not aligned to the right realm the being automatically wins. Beings with insufficient Might cannot enter or use powers on anything within the warded area. If the Ward against supernatural beings uses a specific magical form like Animal or Corpus, the ward is not realm specific. Supernatural beings of the warded form pit their Might against the level of the ward. If the being is a combination of forms (like human, animal and plant), any ward of an applicable form will affect it. Affected beings with insufficient Might cannot enter or use powers on anything within the warded area. Geometric Wards Geometric patterns have great resonance with wards. If designed to be cast on a physically inscribed geometric pattern, the ward will be more effective for its level. The circle is the most basic of the geometric forms, but the choice is up to the spell’s designer. The only requirement is that the pattern encloses the area to be warded. Geometric wards always use target Circle. Therefore, if the pattern is substantially marred (Storyguide decision) the ward will fail. Although warded creatures cannot directly touch the pattern, if intelligent they might used a tool to mar the pattern at a distance. For this reason geometric wards are often made of stone or inlayed metal, making them difficult to damage. If the caster creates the pattern as he casts the ward, no particular standard of geometric accuracy is required. Pre-fabricated patterns however, need to be made with great precision. The Storyguide should determine what level of effort is required in any particular case. It is also possible to have more than one ward on the same pattern. Combining a ward verses infernal beings and inanimate objects would provide all round protection against a demon for instance. Geometric wards have a base range of Personal, duration of Ring and a target of Circle. This is constant across all forms, irrespective of the normal range, duration and target for the particular form. The range and duration can be raised or lowered, but the target must remain Circle. Containment Wards Containment wards trap creatures within them and prevent them using powers on anything outside. These wards are always geometric and are designed in exactly the same way, using the same guidelines. Normally the caster wishes to be outside the ward, so range Touch is almost always used. Regards - David Woods ---- Comments: I would like to see a better argument for the effectiveness of tools, as my gut feeling is that it is contrary to the intention of the rules. --James 16:23, 17 May 2006 (UTC) :I think it is contrary to the intention of the rules as well, but I also think that the intention of the rules is inconsistent with Hermetic theory. Warding against tools should require either a requisite in the appropriate form of that tool (likely Terram) and also increase the level of the spell to be invented, or require a completely separate spell altogether. Spell rules should never encourage players not to be thorough. --Jin-yi 18:02, 17 May 2006 (UTC) :: I see it as a mythic effect. Wards aren't 100% integrated into hermetic theory perhaps, but there needs to be a reasonable way to have wards that work in their proper 'mythic' manner - ie mythically, a ward against dragons more or less completely prevents a dragon from harming what is warded. Mythically, dragons (generally) ain't stupid. So allowing a dragon to uproot the nearest tree and use it as a tool to break the warding circle breaks the mythicallity of wards. :: One way to see it is like this. :: Wards against mundane things are merely 'blocking forces' that block certain mundane things. Mundanes being mundanes don't have any sort of 'mystical signature'. Thus tools used by mundanes are simply a different mundane thing and will be warded or not according to the ward. :: However, mystical creatures do have a sort of 'mystical signature' that kind of rubs off. If they are using tools, then their signature rubs off on the tool and the tools are also blocked by the ward. If they act indirectly and go through enough steps then the mystical signature may or may not be strong enough to have the ward block it. Eg the tree wielded by the dragon still has dragon signature so it is blocked. The human being mind controlled by the dragon has dragon signature and is blocked. But the human crossing the ward of his own volition because his wife is held hostage by the dragon has no dragon signature and is not blocked. This also allows the SG to decide exactly where and when the signature is faint enough, so he can reward inventive methods to get around a ward and block overly simple ones. --Corbonjnl 04:19, 18 May 2006 (UTC) ARS Neil Taylor's MP#10 Wards and Rings Rules David Woods Mon Aug 14 18:23:02 UTC 2000 Saxum Caribetum wrote: ::'' At 05:18 12/08/00, you wrote: ::Date: Fri, 11 Aug 2000 04:29:56 -0400 ::''From: David Woods <> >protect against Fearie, Demonic and Magical animals or even humaniods with > >bestial features (e.g. Claws, horns). So it's swings and roundabouts > >as far as utility goes. > > formulaic magic is often (and intended to be) very tight and specific in > its effects. (The introduction has the silly example fo the Ball Of Stone > spell, that only ever produces stone in ball-shapes, no other shape being > possible.) > The article and guidelines suggest that ReAn is still limited: normal > animal, magical animals, animal-shaped Fae etc or Earth Fae vs Earth > Elementals. I am in favour of the Mundane/Supernatural distinction in Form wards, but not the Realm distinction. Imo a ReAq ward vs supernatural creatures, should protect against both Water Fae and Water Elementals. > The main advantage of the non-Vim Wards is clearly for the non-Vim > specialist: they can be good at warding within their own field. The Vim > specialist (as David Chart observes) is *good* at Warding... better be, too > - they aren't much use on other offense/defense except for Demonology! (oops!) But they still would be *good* at warding. To achieve all round protection against supernatural creatures requires: 3 Vim Wards (Magical, Faerie, Infernal). or 8 Forms Wards (Animal, Corpus, Herbam, Mentem, Aquam, Auram, Ignem, Terram). The Vim specialist can create three wards all within his speciality. An Aquam specialist can create a fine ward vs. water creatures, but against nothing else. Further subdividing Form wards into Magical, Faerie and Infernal, is overly restrictive imo. Ymmv. > >However, imo Neil's retention of Target:Group in ring wards was a mistake. > >Ring wards create a hemispheical shell bordered on the physically drawn ring. > >Everything within this hemisphere is covered by the ward, not just a group > >who > >happen to be within. Imo the target is clearly Circle, not Group. > > the question remains as to the Target of the Guideline for the spell, and > for the question of whether you can increase or decrease the Target. > Since ArM4 explicitly separates Duration: Ring from Target: Circle, it is > clear that you can use Ring duration to scribe a line around > and keep the spell up while the ring remains, independently on any limits > on the contents. According to the letter of the rules, certainly. You could draw a 15 pace ring about a cup, for instance. However, the Target would *just* be the cup, the ring would not be included in the spell's effect. So if you cast your D:Ring T:Small ward, the cup would be warded but not anything else. The same applies to a Group target. Such a ward would not prevent warded creatures/objects from crossing into the ring. This is clearly not what the spell describes. It is also not how such magic should operate imo. If you draw a ring, that should be the boundary of the effect. > Similarly, you can scribe a Target: Circle, which does not last as long as > the line, but fades (eg Sun). I've no problem with that situation. > You *could* rule that scribing a line and using it in the spell forces you > to use D: Ring and T:Circle, but there seems no good reason to mandate that! Except from an aesthetic point of view. And aesthetics is a good reason in a fantasy game. Imo D:Ring should demand T:Circle. > this is why the Target: Group -- this permits a group of up-to-a-dozen (or > so) to be protected within the Ward. But the ward Ring itself is *not* protected. The demon/faerie/X can walk into the ring at will. They can't harm the warded subjects, but they can break the ring or even push people out (depending on your definition of ward protection). > If more than that are present inside > the Ring when it is scribed, then the spell will fail. As explained above, the ward as written is fairly useless anyway. Regards - David Woods --- '''Comments:' So, the rules, as they stand, make "form wards" really quite narrow... --James 17:14, 17 May 2006 (UTC) ---- ARS One Ring to rule them all, and in the moonlight bind Fortunatus Tue Feb 22 10:36:25 UTC 2005 > Hrm. The "Magical Wards" discussion (p. 114) says that "warded things > cannot act across" the ward. It's not clear to me that this prevents > a mundane movement from having a mundane consequence... OTOH, it's not > clear to me that it *doesn't*, and I can envision a physically-powerful > (e.g.) Demon chopping down a tree, to make the magi inside a CWAD go > squish. This would violate the "spirit" (& mythical precedent) of wards > protecting those who shelter within them. A look at Ward Against Faeries of the Water (p.124, 5th ed.) reveals the following text: "Faeries cannot directly or indirectly break the magic circle, nor can they use ranged attacks or magic to affect those within it." I take that to mean not that the ward would cause a faerie-launched muffin to bounce off, but rather that the ward stops the faerie from being able to throw the muffin in the first place. In the CWAD example above, the demon would simply be incapable of chopping the tree down. And, the ward would also stop the demon from using a catapult to launch things at the folks in the CWAD. It would also stop the demon from even attempting to convince someone else to use said catapult against those folks. In other words, the ward works by controlling the beings it wards against, rather than by erecting some kind of force field. -Conrad -- "One is not superior merely because one sees the world as odious." -Chateaubriand ---- Comments: I agree that thrown objects shouldn't bounce off the ward, and I also agree that the ward should protect against objects thrown or wielded by the entity warded against, on the grounds that it counts as a 'direct action' against that which is warded. What do you think? --James 17:47, 17 May 2006 (UTC) : My opinion is that while that might have been the "spirit of the rule," a spell cannot affect a target which is outside its boundaries. That's just not how magic is supposed to work. I could see it working in this manner for a Boundary duration, given that the muffin-launching faerie is within the Boundary, however. A circle target Rego Mentem that drives anyone insane if they cross within, would not drive that human insane until they crossed into the spell effect. Wards should be no different. --Jin-yi 18:02, 17 May 2006 (UTC)